


If These Wings Could Fly

by starsguideyouhome



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Football, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tutoring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsguideyouhome/pseuds/starsguideyouhome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren Jaeger had never been good at first days. On his first day at Trost High School he meets Levi Rivaille- the senior who wants nothing to do with him. However, can a little forced bonding happen while Levi tutors Eren in the language of love? A high school au about tutoring that becomes less about tutoring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Days

 

            First days have always been weird for me. My first day of grade school I got in a fist fight with a kid named Jean over the big box of crayons. My first day of junior high I beat up a group of kids bullying another, smaller boy. His name was Armin and he would go on to become my best friend. However, the amount of time and effort my older sister Mikasa, a junior at the school, had spent trying to prepare me over the summer could have never prepared what laid ahead on my first day at Trost High School. It was the day I met him.

            I remember it clearly. I walked into my first class of the day, French 1. He was standing next to the teacher, his narrowed eyes lazily scanning the classroom. He looked like he would have rather been somewhere else and was sexy as fuck. He was short in stature, but had an overall muscular looking physique with dark colored hair styled in an undercut, and sharp facial features.

            “Bonjour, class! Welcome to French 1!” The teacher said warmly. “We’re going to start out the class by going over the syllabus, but first I would like to introduce you to someone.” She gestured to the teen standing next to her. “This is Levi Rivaille. He is my peer assistant this semester and will be able to help out with any in class assignments we are doing. He also tutors during after school hours for those of you having extra difficulty. Is there anything you want to add?” She turned to Levi.

            “The list of times and sign-up sheet for tutoring is posted outside of the student services office. If you sign up for a lesson and miss it I will hunt you down and make you pay me for the time I spent waiting around for you.” He said in a deep, smooth voice while his face kept the same bored expression.

            “Ah yes, it’s always best to be considerate of everyone’s busy schedules.” The teacher said. “Now let’s take a look at the syllabus I passed out in the beginning of class.”

            I couldn't tell you what was on the syllabus, or anything we did after it. I started to zone out after that point. However, there was one thing I had absolutely been certain of by the time the bell rang and signalled the end of my first class.

            I was going to suck at French.

 

* * *

 

          

  “So Eren, how’s the first day been going so far?” Armin asked me as we sat down to eat. It was half way through the day and hadn’t seen Levi since my first class.

            “It’s been going alright. I haven’t gotten in any fights, but the day is still young and I haven’t seen Jean yet.” I said, taking my first bite into my sandwich. I had been embarrassed at first when Mikasa insisted she pack my lunch. However, looking around at the dull gray slop the cafeteria seemed to be offering I silently thanked her.

            “Come on Eren, can’t you make it through at least one first day without causing some sort of scene?” Armin sighed.

            “Oh come on now Armin, we all know that Eren can’t leave the house without making himself look like a jackass.” Speak of the devil, Jean sat down at the table next to Armin with another freckled boy I had never seen before.

            “You wanna go, Kirschtein?” I scowled at him.

            “Time and place. We all know I could kick your ass, have been since first grade.” He smirked back.

            “Fuck you, I totally beat you then!”

            “You took my crayons and started to cry when I took them back!”

            “They were mine and you were crying, too!”

            “Guys stop, you’re really going to cause another fight about _crayons?_ Seriously?” Armin hissed.

            “Are they always like this?” Freckles chimed in for the first time. I had almost forgotten he was there. 

            “Who is this?” I asked.

            “Eren, don’t be rude!” said Armin.

            “Oh no, it’s fine! I’m Marco. I just moved here from Jinae City.” He smiled cheerfully.

            “Oh it must be rough switching schools like that.” Armin said sympathetically.

            “Yeah, but lucky for me I met Jean in my biology class and now I’ve met you guys.” He said.

            “I wouldn’t call meeting Jean lucky . . .” I mumbled under my breath.

            “What was that Jaeger?” Jean asked.

            “I said it’s so nice that Marco has made such great friends his first day, right Armin?”

            “Uh, yeah.”

            As lunch began to draw to an end I got up to throw my trash away. I was actually somewhat proud of myself as I did, as silly as that sounds. I had made it over halfway through my first day at high school and nothing had happened so far. It was of course as soon as I finished that thought that I ran smack into someone, causing them to spill their tray of food all over themselves.

            “I am so sorry!” I said, leaning down to pick up the food that had landed on the floor and not on the stranger’s shirt. To be honest, if this was the worst that was going to happen I still wasn’t going to call the day a complete failure.

            “What the hell, brat!” An angry voiced yelled at me and I froze.

I knew that voice. It couldn’t be, it wasn’t. I cautiously looked up.

It was.

There I was, squatting on the floor holding an apple core while looking up at an unbelievably pissed looking Levi with the contents of his fruit cup now all over his shirt. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there completely frozen. Luckily (or unluckily, I guess) Levi soon turned his attention to me.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Where you even watching where you were going?” He glared down at me.

“I was throwing away my trash.” I mentally smacked myself after I heard the words leave my mouth. In all fairness, it could have been a lot worse seeing as I was still on the ground appearing to be having some sort of mental break down.

“Wow, aren’t you just a fucking Einstein.” He rolled his eyes and began to access the damage the fruit cup had done to his shirt. His shirt was dark so there wasn’t much of a stain, but it was still noticeable. I had taken this moment to get up and throw away the remaining food. “Great now I have to wear this disgusting, sticky shirt around the rest of the day.” He mumbled.

“You could borrow one from me. I have lots of extra shirts in my gym locker.” I turned back to him and hoped I could get this conversation to end on a good note between Levi and me.

“Why would I want one of your smelly gym shirts?” He rejected.

“They’re not smelly, I promise! I don’t even have gym this semester. They’re for football, but they’re all clean I promise!” I said.

He stared me down for what felt like a lifetime, looked back down at his shirt before finally sighing in defeat.

“Let’s go.” He ordered and began to walk away before I had a chance to respond. I glanced back at Armin who was sending me a confused look from back at the table. I simply shrugged in response before running after Levi, who was already exiting the cafeteria.

The walk to the locker room did not go how I planned it to. Well that makes it sound like I had purposely run into this person I met no more than four hours ago, spill garbage on them, and then convince them to borrow one my shirts. Not that I was in anyway opposed to what was happening right now, in fact I was overjoyed at the moment. However, the idea that I had come up with such a convoluted plan was giving myself a bit too much credit.

The way I had planned, or rather hoped, for this impromptu trip to go was something like this:

“So, you’re my French tutor?” I’d say in a smooth, deep, seductive voice.

“Why, yes I am! How kind of you to remember me!” He would swoon.

“Well then are you a tower, baby, because Eiffel for you.”

“Oh my! You have such a way with words!” He’d blush.

And then we’d get to the locker room and make out for ten minutes or, you know, something like that.

What really happened went much more like this:

“So, uh, you’re my French tutor?” My voice cracked.

“There’s been one class so far and all you guys did was go over the syllabus. I’m not anyone’s tutor yet.” He said.  

“Oh, right. I just get the feeling that I’m not going to do very well in class, so I’ll probably need your help a lot.” I anxiously rubbed the back of my neck. This was definitely not going to go like I planned.

“How could you possibly know that yet? Besides weren’t you paying any attention in that class or were you too busy zoning out then, too? She gives out extra credit assignments like every week. It’s almost impossible to fail her class.” He pointed out. I remembered Mikasa telling me something similar when I had first gotten my class schedule, but I was in far too deep of a hole to climb out now.

“Well yeah, but I probably won’t have a lot of free time on my hands with football. Plus, I need to keep my grades up if I want to stay on the team.” I said.

“It sounds to me like you already plan on failing.” He deadpanned.

“What- I am not!” I totally was, but I don’t think admitting that would help in the slightest.

“Then why don’t you get off your ass and actually sound like you plan on opening your book this semester and not just counting on tutoring to boost your grade. I’m here for students who are actually struggling in the class, not students who are too lazy to try.” He said, sounding slightly annoyed. 

“You don’t know that I won’t struggle!”

“You don’t know that you won’t succeed, either. Like I said earlier, all you did today was go over the syllabus. Unless that was too much for your tiny brain to handle. Then I would suggest just dropping the class.”

We finally reached the locker room after what felt like an eternity. Levi swiftly opened the door and stepped back out of the way for me to get to my locker. I fumbled with the lock for a few minutes before finally getting it to work and pulled out the first shirt I could find. It was black with the school’s name and logo on it- the Trost Scouts with blue and white wings.

I hadn’t been paying attention to Levi, so I was a caught off guard when I looked back and saw that he had already stripped off his other shirt. I had been able to tell that he had a nice body with a shirt on, but without it was just . . . whoa. He was extremely lean and toned with smooth, pale skin that I wanted to reach out and touch. I stood their staring for a few seconds before Levi decided he had enough.

“Are you going to give me the shirt, or just stand there like a fucking idiot?”  He questioned unamused. I blushed a bit and tossed him the shirt.

When he put it on I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. One thing that both Levi and I had managed to forget was that I was quite a bit taller than him. The shirt was only a bit too large for me, but on Levi it could have been a very scandalous dress.

“Oi, don’t laugh at me you shitty brat!” He fidgeted with the shirt trying to make it shorter. “We can’t all be giant assholes like you.”

“Of course not, the world needs little assholes like you to make the ones like me look tall. I thank you for your service.” I gave a slight bow.

He glared at me, but I saw the smallest of smirks on his face before he turned away.

The bell rang a few seconds after we had exited the locker room and Levi and I turned to go our separate ways.

“I’ll be sure to wash your shirt before I bring it back.” He said.

“You can keep it if you want. I’ve got like a million more and I never wear that one.” I said.

“Why the hell would I want your giant shirt?” He scoffed.

“I dunno, wear it as pajamas or something.” I shrugged. The idea of Levi sleeping in my shirt made me unbelievably happy, but I got the feeling if I told Levi that I’d get punched. “See you around, Levi.”

“Better not be in tutoring, brat!”

 

* * *

 

           

            “Were you talking to Levi Rivaille earlier?” Armin whispered to me. We were in our last class of the day, geometry, with roughly half an hour left.

            “Yeah, why?” I was surprised. How did Armin know Levi?

            “You mean you don’t know?” He whispered back, surprised himself.

            “Know what?”

            “I can’t believe it. You really don’t know?”

            “Just fucking tell me, Armin!” I whispered a bit too loud and managed to catch the attention of the teacher.

            “Now I know it’s the first day of class and there’s on a bit of time left, but let’s try to pay attention, Eren was it? Unlike some classes, you’ll actually need to pay attention in mine if you plan on passing, understood?”

            “Yes, sir.” I said and tried to fight the blush I could feel creeping up my neck as the entire class snickered. The last bit of what he said reminded me to much of Levi’s speech earlier and it felt like I was being taunted. I glanced over at Armin who shot me an apologetic look. I gave a halfhearted glare in return before sighing in defeat and actually attempting to pay attention. However, no matter how much I tried my brain kept returning to Levi and Armin’s slightly cryptic sounding knowledge of him. The second the bell rang I shot out of my seat, grabbed my books, Armin, and bolted out the door.

            “Alright Armin make this quick, both our practices start in half an hour.” We walked back to my locker.

            “I don’t understand how you don’t know . . .” He rolled his eyes like he had forgotten he had the one of the densest people in the world as a best friend.

            “For the love of God Armin, just fucking tell me!” I snapped.

            “Well for starters he’s most likely going to be valedictorian of his class. It goes back and forth between him and Erwin Smith a lot, but he was number one for the majority of last year.”

            “Erwin? He’s the captain of the varsity football team. I would have never guessed there was some brain behind all that brawn.” I said.

            “He’s a genius, Eren, all of his friends are. Not to mention that they’re probably the most popular people in the entire school. Levi was also one of the captains for the varsity soccer team the past two years. He didn’t try out this year and no one knows why. I was disappointed when I found out. I was really looking forward to getting to practice with him this year.” Armin frowned.

            “Why were you so surprised I didn’t know any of this? Academics and soccer have always been your thing, not mine.” I slammed my locker close. We headed down the hall to his locker.

            “But still, it’s more common knowledge than anything else. It’d be like someone having Erwin in their class and having no idea who he was.” Armin shoved his books in his backpack and we turned to head to the locker room.

“Alright, I see your point.” I said.

            “So what happened with you two in lunch? All I saw happen was you leaving with him.” He questioned.

            “Well I kind of ran into him and he spilled his food all over himself. Then-”

            “Eren you did not!” Armin groaned and buried his hands in his face. “I am seriously regretting whatever poor life choices I made that lead to having you as a friend.”

            “Will you relax, it wasn’t that bad. We left and I gave him one of my spare shirts. He’s also my class’s peer assistant in French and the French tutor.”

            “Don’t you have the French teacher that never fails anyone? Why would anyone need a tutor for that?” Armin questioned.

            “Well we all can’t be as smart as you, Armin.” I muttered under my breath. It seemed like everyone was against me being tutored by Levi, including Levi.

            “Eren, please tell me you’re not planning on doing badly in French just so Levi can tutor you.” Armin accused.

            “What? I- no, jeez!” What’s with everyone and their sudden confidence in my ability to know French? I was a C/D student in middle school. The idea that I might actually need tutoring shouldn’t be something that shocks anyone.

            “Eren you literally just met him today.” Armin said.

            “I never said anything!” I wasn’t really put up much of a defense. Arguing against Armin, especially while knowing he was right, felt like attacking a fortress with a water-gun.

            “You really can’t have a normal first day, can you?” Armin sighed as we finally reached the locker room. However, this time it was packed full of boys getting ready for whatever sport they were in. “Just promise me one thing: don’t do anything stupid. You’re not a bad student, Eren, you’re just lazy.”

“God what are you, my counselor? I promise I won’t intentionally fail French. Happy? See you after practice.” I said hastily as I turned down the row of lockers sectioned off for football players. Armin sent me one last pointed look before heading one row over to join the other soccer players. I groaned and let my head smack against the locker.

“Rough first day, Jaeger?” A voice said from the locker next to me. It was Reiner Braun, a sophomore.

“Yeah, they all tend to be.” I said, opening my lock and flinging my locker open with more force than necessary, causing it to make a loud slam as it hit the locker next to it.

“I can tell. Days like this it’s best to bring that energy to the field and let it all out. Helps to vent out some frustration.” Reiner let out a hearty laugh before smacking me on the shoulder and walking away. “Better hurry up by the way, we’re supposed to be on the field in five.”

I quickly managed to get on my gear on and run out to the field with about thirty seconds to spare. I joined the others just as Erwin was about to lead the group in warm ups. Trost High had three different levels of football: varsity, junior varsity, and freshman. While we split up to do our separate practices, we all got together for a small warm up and cool down lead by the captain of the varsity team.

“Alright team, this practice marks the official beginning of the season. This is where it starts to get serious. We’ll start with three laps around the field and spilt up from there. Let’s all give it our best today!” Erwin called out and we all started to jog behind him.

I couldn’t help but stare at Erwin as we ran laps. I had only spoken to a handful of times over summer training, but it seemed too odd to me that someone like him and Levi could be friends. Erwin came off as a Mr. School Sprit, homecoming king sort of guy. Levi, on the other hand, seemed angry and pissed off all the time. Well, that was what I gathered from the limited interaction I had with him today. For all I know I could have caught him in a bad mood. The real Levi could be all sunshine and rainbows, but I somehow I _really_ doubted that.

Practice carried on that day as it normally did. I took Reiner’s advice and let off a little of my steam during the practice. I may have tackled Jean a bit rougher than necessary, but I honestly don’t think I could have counted my first day to be over without causing Jean some sort of bodily harm. He, of course, he returned the favor when the roles in the drill became reversed. By the time practice had ended I was tired, sore, and covered in grass stains, but overall felt a lot better.

“Nice job out there today, Jaeger!” Reiner said, slapping me on the back right where I could feel a bruise beginning to form.

“Yeah, thanks.” I winced a bit, rubbing the tender spot. “I was just taking your advice from earlier.”

“Well keep it up. I saw the coach eyeballing you today during practice. I think you’ve definitely caught his interest.”

“Oh wow, I’ll be sure to keep at it then.” The more the coach pay attention to me this semester, the better my chances were at getting more playing time.

            By the time I was finished changing the girls and boys soccer teams had just finished with their practice. I sat on the bench outside my locker and mindlessly flicked through twitter on my phone. I looked up Levi on it and began to scroll through his page. He hadn’t posted much on it over the summer, just random conversations/arguments he had been dragged into by his friends that he seemed pretty apathetic about the entire time.

            I wanted to click follow so bad. It wasn’t creepy, right? I mean, sure, I had only really had one conversation with him, most of which it was just him chastising me, but people followed people they didn’t know all the time. I had never met Justin Timberlake, but that didn’t stop me from following him. It was no big deal. Right? Oh my god, why was I making this such a big deal? My thumb sat there hovering over the follow button while I had what was my second internal crisis of the day.

            “What are you doing?” I hadn’t noticed Armin walk up and nearly dropped my phone when he spoke.

            “Nothing! You all set to go?” I quickly closed the app and shoved my phone into my pocket.

            “Yeah, let’s go.” He raised an eyebrow at me. It was obvious he knew that I was lying, but apparently decided he had harassed me enough today and decided not to question it further.

            Mikasa was already waiting for us outside of the girl’s locker room when we walked out. She played soccer for the school during the fall and played on a travel team the rest of the year.

            “Hey guys. Eren, how was your first day?” She questioned immediately.

            “It was fine.” I answered quickly, not wanting her to push the subject.

            “Really?” She seemed unconvinced. “Armin, how did Eren’s day go?”

            I tensed up immediately. If Armin told Mikasa what I may or may not be secretly planning, I was pretty sure she would beat the crap out of Levi and never let me leave the house again. Neither of these options sounded particularly favorable so I sent Armin what was probably the most pathetic face I could muster.

            “Uh, the only thing I saw him do was spill food on Levi Rivaille. That’s all.” He said.

            We both looked at her awaiting a reaction. I was pleasantly surprised and confused when instead of scolding me, she burst out laughing.

            “Did you really? That’s great!” She laughed.

            “It is?” I questioned.

            “Definitely. I’m only sorry I wasn’t there to see it. I talked to him a few times when he played on the boy’s team. He was always such an asshole. Good job, Eren.” She patted me on the head.

            “Uh, no problem.” I said. That went better than expected.

            We all piled into Mikasa’s car and drove away, finally ending my first day of high school. Overall, it was one of the better first days I’ve had- no fights happened, no property damage, and I was pretty sure none of my teachers hated me yet. There was the minor detail that I managed to piss off one of the most attractive guys in school, but I was pretty sure that ended on a good note. I think.

Yes, this year was sure going to be something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this is my first time publishing a fanfic. My tumblr is http://starsguideyouhome.tumblr.com/. I'll be sure to post stuff about when I'm updating on there. Fun fact before I go: my junior year I actually did have the star quarterback in my physics class and was completely unaware of it until my friend pointed it out to me. Go me.


	2. Sideways Steps

I was greeted the next morning in French by Levi smacking a stack of tests on my desk.

            “Pass those back.” He said and walked over to the next row of desks.

            “Wait, what are these?” I asked.

            “Wow, you really did have your head up your ass yesterday.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s the pretest. Almost every class has one. You take it at the beginning of the year, and then again at the end to measure your progress throughout the class. It’s not counted for a grade the first time, so don’t worry about it. Everyone does awful on it the first time around.”

            “Oh, alright.” I said and passed the tests back.

            This was my chance! If I did badly enough on this pretest then it would show everyone that I needed tutoring for sure. Levi had said that everyone did badly on it the first time, which probably meant that most people failed it. However, if I did even worse, if I got zero right, then they’d have to realize that I needed tutoring. It was the perfect plan. There was no way it could fail, unlike me.

            “Alright class, now remember to just try to do your best on this. This doesn’t count for a grade so try not to stress. Whoever improves the most on the post-test at the end of the year will get candy!” The teacher said.

            I skimmed over the test. There was a few I was sure I could guess on, maybe one or two I actually knew the answer to, but most of it I honestly had no idea what the answer was. I guess that was probably the point, to measure how much of an understanding of French I had before the class actually started. Because I wanted to know absolutely nothing about French, I went through every question and picked the answer that I knew wasn’t the right one. One question gave an answer in Spanish- picked that one. One question had a joke answer- picked that one. I almost felt bad for picking these answers. They were obliviously there to take up space and not to actually be picked. I promised Armin I wouldn’t purposely fail. Was I really willing to break that promise? I looked up and saw sitting Levi in a chair with his legs crossed, lazily flicking through a book.

            I was.

            Eventually the bell rang and everyone got up and placed their test on the teacher’s desk.  I overheard Levi talking to the teacher about grading them during his free period later that day. I awkwardly spent longer than necessary gathering my things together so we both ended up leaving the room at the same time.

            “Hi!” I grinned.

            He glanced at me and kept walking. Well that back fired.

            “So, uh, that pretest was kind of rough.” I scratched the back of my head. I could already see this going down a similar path as yesterday’s conversation.

            “You haven’t actually been taught anything yet. It wasn’t supposed to be easy.” He said flatly and turned the corner.  

Well it went better than yesterday, but I still had the feeling that no actual progress was made. It was like I took a step sideways. I wasn’t going to give up easily though. I knew that I couldn’t expect him to warm up to me over night, I would have to patient. Unfortunately for me, patience was never one of my strong suits. Nevertheless, I would persevere! I would continue to be that annoying little fly buzzing around his head. I would be the annoying little fly that he learned to love.

 

* * *

 

 

“So Eren, Armin told me about your creepy plans involving Levi.” Jean said to me the second I sat down at the lunch table.

“Armin, what the hell?” I demanded.

“Sorry Eren.” He shrugged. “I really didn’t even tell him that much, just about how you spilled food on him-”

“Which is hilarious.” Jean interrupted and I flipped him off.

“-And that you had mentioned he was the French tutor. He figured out the rest on his own.”

 “It’s obvious to anyone who knows how much of a spaz you are.” He rolled his eyes and took a bite of his food. God, I was so fucking closed to punching him in his stupid horse-face.

“It was obvious to me and the only thing I had to go on was Armin’s description of you.” A blonde girl I had never seen before said as she sat down at the table.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked. Just how many people were planning on getting involved in my business?

“Annie.” She stated.

“She’s in my English class. We started talking about how our first day went and she mentioned how she saw someone spill food all over someone else in the cafeteria. I told her that it was you and your history of first days. I may have mentioned Levi somewhere in there.” Armin explained further.

“Well, fuck, Armin. Exactly how many people do plan on telling?” I snapped. Did he want to just waltz on up to Levi and tell him, too? Better yet, he could just get on the schools announcement system and say it there. That would save him the trouble of having to go around and stop people one by one.

“I’m not even saying anything important! Everyone I’ve told so far has been able to figure it out for themselves.” He pointed out.

“If it makes you feel any better, Eren, I didn’t suspect you were up to anything up until Jean pointed it out.” Marco chimed in, smiling sympathetically. 

“Marco, you are way too good a person to be friends with Jean.” I sighed.

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean?” Jean demanded. Marco chuckled and Jean turned to give him an exasperated look. “Don’t laugh at that, he’s an ass!”

“So, Annie, I’ve never seen you around before. Did you just move here?” I asked, trying to change the subject off of me for a bit.

“No. I live in smaller town outside of Trost. The way the district lines are drawn a few people from my middle school end up going here instead the high school in that town.” She responded. “My cousin goes here, too. He’s a grade older than us.”

“Oh, who’s your cousin?” Armin asked.

“Reiner Braun.”

“ _He’s_ your cousin?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

Wow, I would have never put two and two together. I mean I guessed they looked a bit alike, but personality wise I was getting the vibe that these two were polar opposites. Reiner was super friendly and upbeat. With Annie, on the other hand, I was having trouble with figuring out if she was angry or if her face just looked like that.

“Huh, wouldn’t have guessed. He’s on the football team with me. He’s actually part of the reason I have this huge bruise on my back.” I chuckled a bit, before realizing how suggestive that sounded. “Wow that did not come out right. I mean he hit me on the back- in a friendly way!”

“I knew what you meant. Reiner’s more into the tall, sweaty type. From what I can tell you go for the short, angry type.” She said.

“How’s that going for you anyway, Eren? Isn’t Levi your peer assistant for French?” Armin asked.

“He is. It was fine.” I really wanted this conversation to be done with.

“So I take it that means you made an ass of yourself and he just ignored you?” Jean smirked.

“You know what, fuck you.” I stood up to go throw my trash away. I didn’t have to take this, especially not from Jean.

“Try not to run into anyone this time!” He called after me.

            I turned around to yell something back when I did bump into someone, causing them to fall over. Of fucking course. I stumbled back a bit and looked at the person I had just accidently assaulted. It was Levi, again, because God clearly hates me. I could hear Jean laughing in the background. I was going to absolutely kill him in practice today. There would be no body left to return to his family. I was snapped out of my murderous thoughts by the sound of Levi talking.

            “What the hell?” He said, slightly disoriented from the sudden crash. He looked up and saw me and scowled. “You again.”

            “Hi.” I said meekly and reached out my hand to help him up. He took it unenthusiastically. His hands were nice and smooth. I couldn’t help but start to think about how they would feel on my face as we passionately kissed. I quickly banished those thoughts. Now was not the time.

            “I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.” He accused.

            “I’m not, I swear!” I innocently held up both of my hands in front of me. “At least you weren’t holding food this time.” I smiled sheepishly.

            “Tch, whatever.” He said curtly before turning around and going back to his table.

            I shamefully walked back to my seat and buried my head into my arms.

            “Well I guess you can say that Levi’s really falling for you, Eren.” Jean was still laughing. The table collectively groaned and I gave him a swift kick to the shin. “Ow!”

            “There’s always tomorrow, I’m sure it can’t get much worse.” Marco, being ever the optimist, said.  

            “I really hope you’re right.” I groaned.

 

* * *

 

 

            The next day was much, much worse.

            I should have known something was up when I walked into French and Levi looked like he was about to walk up and stab me. However, I hadn’t seen him very many times where he _didn’t_ look like that, so in my defense I thought it was part of his normal annoyance with me. Aside from that brief warning, the rest of class carried on like normal. We started learning basic French words and phrases, such as how to introduce yourself and ask where the bathroom was. I didn’t suspect anything was up until after the bell rang and the teacher called my name.

            “Eren, could you please stay after class for a few minutes?” She asked.

            “Sure.” I said.

            “It’s about yesterday’s pretest. We’ve never seen anyone get results quite like this.” She seemed slightly concerned.

            I started to get excited. Things actually seemed like they were going to happen as planned this time, with something I purposely planned to happen. But as previously noted God hates me so it, of course, didn’t. If things had gone the way they were supposed to it would have happened something like this:

            “Eren, you didn’t get a single answer right on the pretest. The only logical thing to do now is to put you in tutoring to make sure you get a good, head start in French and don’t fall behind!” The teacher would say.

            “Although I do not wish to, I know it is the best thing for me to do. I will have Levi tutor me.” I would say, being the wonderful student I am.

            “Such a responsible young man!” She would gush.

            “Why wait, let’s start the tutoring now!” Levi would say.

            Then instead of going to my next class, Levi would start to tutor me in the language of love with his tongue in a stall in the boy’s bathroom- or something like that.

            What actually happened went a lot more like this (once again, Levi’s seething glare as I walked up to the desk should have really alerted me ahead of time):

            “Eren, you only got one answer right on the pretest.” She frowned.

            “One?” How did I get one right? I aimed to completely fail. Go big or go home. “Which one?”

            “Number 14. Ironically it was the most difficult question on the test.”

            “Oh.” I remembered that question. It was one of the ones I had just blindly guessed on. It was just a lucky guess, or unlucky considering what I was trying accomplish.

            “I was speaking to Levi about what he thought this meant. He suggested that it meant you already knew all of the answers.” She said.

            I blinked, taken aback. How did that make any sense? I got almost every single answer wrong, but somehow that meant I knew all of the answers? Now I may not be the smartest person, but I was pretty confident that getting a question wrong meant that you _didn’t_ know the answer. I glanced over at Levi. His the murderous expression on his face hadn’t changed since the beginning of class.

            “The probability of you missing almost every answer is extremely low. You picked the joke answers every time there was one. It almost looks like you tried to fail on purpose.” Levi said and shot me a pointed look. “If that was, for some reason, the case then you must have known the answers to the questions and deliberately picked the wrong ones.”

            “If that’s the case there’s a French 2 class happening during this period across the hall. It’s not too late for you to transfer into that class if you feel that this one will be not challenging enough for you.” The teacher suggested.

            Shit, shit, shit- this is most definitely _not_ what was supposed to happen! That was about the absolute last thing that I had wanted to come out of this plan. 

            “No! I mean, I promise that is not what I did.” I needed a way out of this conversation that didn’t involve getting transferred into a class I would _actually_ fail and having to explain myself.

            “Well then what’s your excuse?” Levi demanded.

            “If I’m being completely honest . . . I wasn’t really trying on the test. I just went through and picked answers randomly.” I wasn’t a total lie, but it definitely wasn’t the truth either. However, I was far beyond morals at this point and just hoped it would do the job in getting me not transferred into French 2.

            “Eren I know that it doesn’t seem like it, but these tests are very important. We can’t accurately measure your progress in the class if you don’t take it seriously.” The teacher said disapprovingly. “With this type of attitude you can’t expect to do very well in the class.”

            I perked back up at the last part of what she said. There was still hope. I could still make this work out.

            “I know. I’m sorry. I was just having a rough day. I promise that it won’t happen again.” I said.

            “It’s alright. Just make sure to start working hard. We have our first quiz coming up on Monday. It’s only ten questions, but it’s easy to fall behind in this class if you don’t keep up with your work.” She said. “If you ever feel like you need extra help, Levi’s available for tutoring after school.”

            Jackpot.

            “I’ll be sure to study hard this weekend. I don’t know if tutoring will be completely necessary, but if it comes to that then I’ll be sure to take advantage of it. I need to be sure to keep my grades up if I want to stay on the football team.” I said. I could see Levi’s eyes widen in confusion, before quickly returning into a deadly glare.

            “Very good. I’ll write both of you passes to your next class.”

The bell rang and Levi and I both left the class room. I barely had a chance to let out a sigh of relief before what happened next.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Levi hissed at me.

“What?” I was slightly taken aback. Sure Levi had been irritated at me before, but this was a whole new level of rage. It was like I could feel the venom in his voice in my own veins. 

“This whole thing you’re doing with failing on purpose. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He took a step towards me and I took a step back.

“I’m not-” I started to meekly protest.

“Don’t you fucking dare try to feed me some bullshit excuse like you did with the teacher back there.” He snapped. “She might have believed your shitty lie, but I can see right through you.”

“I’m not lying!” I shouted. I was surprised at how composed I sounded seeing as Levi looked like he was about to actually murder me. “And even if I was, why the hell do you care? You get paid if I end up in tutoring, isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s not about the money, you dumbass.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s about looking good on my transcripts.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of fucking course you don’t.” He muttered under his breath. “Even if kids don’t show up to tutoring I still get to put that I was a student tutor on my transcript when colleges start to look at them. When I don’t have students to actually tutor, I get to go home and do work that actually matters. That’s why I signed up to tutor French 1 for this teacher. There should be very few students that actually need my help.”

“So this is all about looking good to colleges to you?” I asked.

“Bingo.”

“But, aren’t you the smartest kid in school? Plus you were captain of the soccer team. I’m sure you have tons of schools just tossing scholarships at you. What difference is being some random French tutor going to make?”

“It’s not about any of those shitty schools. It’s about _the_ school.”

“What school?” I pushed.

“None of your business. Get to class.” He dismissed and started to walk away. “One last thing though. If you fail that quiz on Monday and end up in tutoring, I will make your life a living hell.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was a wonderful morning on Monday. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I had a quiz to fail.

 Levi’s threats had meant very little to me in all actuality. I would be paying him to tutor me. What was the worst he do, beat me up? So, I spent the entire weekend playing videogames and eating Peanut Butter Crunch out of the box in my boxers instead of studying. On Sunday afternoon Mikasa began to question why I wasn’t doing any work.

“It’s still too early for any of the teachers to quiz us. We haven’t covered enough information yet.” I said while shoving another handful of cereal into my mouth.

“Enjoy it now, that’ll all change once you’re an upperclassman.” She groaned and gestured to her mounds of schoolwork and ACT prep books she had spread out over the table.

Armin had questioned me too, but I was flat out refusing to tell him anything anymore.

“No way dude. Not going to happen.” I said into my headset Saturday afternoon as I killed Armin’s little pixelated person.

“Come on. You’ve barely said anything about it since Tuesday. All you’ve keep saying is that nothing has happened. You and me both know that’s not entirely true.” He said.

“Nothing _has_ happened. Even if something had, I definitely wouldn’t tell you. You might pass out flyers to the entire school saying that I want to get into Levi’s pants.”

“Does Mikasa know yet?” He asked.

“No and it will continue to be that way unless you want her to know about your secret.” I threatened.

“. . . Fair enough.”

So here I was on this bright and shining morning about to seal my fate. I walked into the school with a smile on my face and skip in my step. Armin and Mikasa had had been staring at me like I had third head since the carpool. Their long history with me had shown to them that, not only was I not a fan of Monday’s, but that I absolutely hated mornings. I was honestly a nightmare to get out of bed. So when Mikasa had gotten up and found me already dressed and eating breakfast she was, understandably, a bit shocked. When I cheerfully greeted Armin when we picked him up further fueled their confusion.

“Is he ok?” Armin asked Mikasa.

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

I was at my locker humming a tune and impatiently waiting for first period to start when Armin decided to press the issue further.

“What are you planning?” He walked up and asked.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said, reorganizing the books in my locker for the fifteenth time that morning. Five more minutes.

“You. You’re planning something with Levi today. I know you are.” He narrowed his eyes.

“Why, Armin, I am hurt that you think I am capable of something so deviant like that. Can’t a person just be happy to be alive here on this magnificent Monday morning?” I was definitely over playing it, but fuck it, I was in too good of a mood to care.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Yeah, well you’re a blabbermouth.” As if on cue, the warning bell rang, signaling two minutes until the start of the first class. “As much as I am loving this chat we’re having, I have a class to get to.” I gathered my books and slammed my locker close.

“You better tell what you’re planning at lunch!” Armin called after me.

“Not a chance!” I said cheerfully as I turned the corner.

Once class started Levi began to hand out the quizzes. Once he got to my row he started to hand me the stack to pass back, but then quickly pulled the papers back and glared down at me.

“Remember what I said, Jaeger.” He said flatly and plopped the papers down.

I gave a simple nod and smiled before passing back the quizzes and turning to my own. It wasn’t that complicated seeing as it was the first quiz and we hadn’t actually learned much yet. I could probably get a C on it if I tried. However, not trying was kind of the point of this whole thing. I didn’t want to totally bomb this like I did with the pretest. That would raise more suspicion with the teacher and I might end up being encouraged to just drop the course. No, I would have to be sneakier. I’ll aim for a D this time around. It’s not actually failing, but it’s enough to potentially put me on academic probation from football if I kept it up. I glanced up and saw Levi staring at me. I gave a small grin in return before going back to my quiz.

Now let’s see:

**Which one of these means green in French?**

**a. Vert**

**b. Brun**

**c. Bleu**

**d. Jaune**

 

Let’s go with c.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s chapter 2 finally. I've had a boatload of schoolwork lately and a ton more coming up in April and then finals. These week is my only break. Yay college. So, I’m sorry if updates are slow until then, it should get better once this semester ends. Also, I took Spanish instead of French in high school so if I end up making some stupid mistake with it please tell me and I’ll correct it. Thanks!


	3. Moving Forward

Armin did not waste any time before the interrogation began. To make matters worse I was the last person to show up at the lunch table, meaning that he had managed to fill everyone else in and convinced them to participate. Not that it took much convincing with them. Nosy bunch of jerks.

            “So Eren, are you ready to share what you’ve been up to with the class?” Armin asked.

            “I still don’t know what you’re talking about Armin. Why would I be up to anything? I promised you that I wouldn’t intentionally fail French. Don’t you trust me?” I batted my eye lashes at him.

            “No.” He said flatly.

            “Ouch, that cut deep.” I clutched my chest in mock pain.

            “You can’t really blame him for being suspicious, though.” Marco chimed in. “I saw you leaving first period this morning and it looked like you were practically skipping out the door.”

            “What happened, Jaeger? You get to stare at Levi for an entire class? God, you’re a freak.” Jean taunted.   

            “You’re mom sure wasn’t complaining about that last night.” I snapped back.

            “Fuck you.”

            Just then a kid I vaguely recognized from being in my French class walked past the table. Thomas? I think that was his name. I feel like I should know more people’s names in that class than I do, but I don’t really care that much. I spend about half of that class staring at Levi and the other half still staring at him, but trying to look like I’m actually paying attention. The only reason I know Thomas’s name is because he sits in the row right next to me. He seemed like an alright kid.

            “Hey Eren!” He said cheerfully and stopped in front of the table. “How do you think that quiz went this morning in French? Pretty easy, huh?”

            Oh God. Fuck. Thomas, why are you doing this to me? I take back my previous thought of you being alright. You are the worst type of person. Granted, he had no idea of my devious plans in that class, but still. Worst type of person. I stared in wide-eyed horror as I watched realization flood through the faces of everyone at the table. Shit.

            “Oh yeah, I think I did alright.” I nervously laughed. For a brief moment I wondered if there was some way I could still get myself out of this, but then I met Armin’s murderous gaze and knew that I was already dead.

            “Yeah. What did you get for number-”

            “Bye Thomas!” I cut him off with a huge forced grin. He seemed confused for a moment, but then read the glances of the others at the table.

            “Oh, alright. Catch you later, Eren.” He said somewhat uncertainly and left, causing me to be alone with my doom.

            “Eren, what the actual fuck?” Armin hissed at me. It was obvious he was angry, but trying hard to not draw any unnecessary attention to the table. “Remember that one time you promised me you wouldn’t intentionally fail French? When was that again, about two minutes ago? Or did you forget like you forgot that you had a French quiz today?”

            “Well, _technically_ , I didn’t fail. I’m pretty sure I got a D.” I said sheepishly.

            “How can you be sure that you got a D, didn’t you just blindly guess on it?” Marco questioned. Armin’s eyes widened at this statement. Oh God, he knew.

            “Eren.” He said calmly. It was the calm before a storm. “Please tell me you didn’t calculate out how many questions you needed to get wrong to get a D. Please tell you didn’t put that much energy into getting a D.”

            “There were only ten questions on the quiz, so . . .” I trailed off. There was absolutely nothing I could say that would get me out of this hole I had dug for myself.

            “Goddammit, Eren!” Armin buried his face in palms.

            “While I admire the amount of effort you’re putting into this plan of yours, I do have one question.” Annie spoke up for the first time since I had sat down. “Do you even know if Levi is gay?”

            I . . . had honestly never thought of that. I had no idea if Levi was interested in guys or not. If he wasn’t then my entire plan would be a total waste of time and I really didn’t want to waste Levi’s time. It was clear from what he said to me earlier that Levi was really stressing out about colleges and his grades. However, from what I had learned from stalking his twitter page his friends seemed a bit worried about his stress levels lately. Maybe it would be good for him to take a bit of time out of his day and unwind a bit. Yes, even if Levi wasn’t gay, the plan would still move forward. I wanted to be his friend, even if we could never be together. He seemed like he could be a pretty cool guy.

            That being said I was not throwing aside the primary object of being with Levi. I needed to find out if he was gay or not and soon.

            “Armin, what do you think?” I turned to him.

            “What are you implying, Eren?” He blinked slowly at me. He was so done with me right now.

            “I’m implying that you were just full of the fun facts about him a few days ago. I just assumed that maybe you knew something about if he was into Barbie’s or Ken’s.” I said.

            “Well I _don’t_.” He snapped.

            “What about that girl in the glasses?” Marco gestured to a girl sitting next to Levi at his table across the room. “They look like they could be dating, or at least flirting.”

            I glanced over to the girl that Marco was talking about. It looked like she was trying to excitedly show Levi something on her phone, but he was just ignoring her. She then said something and managed to get a smirk and reply out of him. It didn’t really look like anything super flirtatious, but looking at their body language it was easy to tell that these two were at least good friends.

            “Her? No. That’s Hange Zoë, she’s dating Erwin Smith.” Armin said.

            “I thought you said you didn't know anything about their love lives?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

            “I don’t know anything about _Levi’s_ love life.” He corrected. “Hange and Erwin are pretty much the schools golden couple. Everyone knows about them. Well, almost everyone.” He gave me a pointed look.

            “What about the ginger?” Annie pointed to the girl sitting on the other side of Levi. She appeared to be bickering with the guy sitting across the table from her.

            “Petra Ral. She has an on-off relationship with Auruo Bossard. It seems like their currently off.” Armin clarified, again.

            “What about the blonde?” Jean asked. She appeared to be ignoring all of the other commotion going on at the table and was quietly eating her lunch.

            “That’s Nanaba. She’s dating Mike Zacharius. You and Eren should know him, he’s on the varsity football team.” Armin stated like he was stating a simple fact of life, like that the sky was blue or Jean was a jackass.

            “The amount of information you have on this group of strangers is slightly disturbing.” Jean slowly turned his head towards Armin with a raised eyebrow.  

            “I just can’t believe you know everything about all those people and nothing about Levi. Like, what the hell man? Did you just choose to turn out everything involving Levi when you went on your little stalking sprees?” I questioned.

            “I am not a stalker!” Armin blushed. “I’m just in a lot of classes with upperclassman right now. They gossip a lot and I end up overhearing certain things. And I don’t know anything about Levi’s sexuality because, as far as I know, he’s never been with anyone.”

             “Oh, he’s definitely gay then.” Jean snorted.

            “What makes you think that?” Marco asked.

            “Well look at him, he’s clearly one of the most attractive guys in the school. He could have almost any girl he wanted here and he’s never gone out with anyone? Hell, I’m sure girls have asked him out and he must have turned them down. He’s probably into dudes and is too afraid to come out.” Jean explained.

            “When I was talking to him before he seemed pretty focused on his school work. Maybe he just thinks that having a girlfriend would be too distracting.” I said.

            “Please. You’re telling me that even as a freshman this kid was already dedicating himself to his studies and no social life? Who the hell does that?” Jean questioned. 

            “Ones who want to get into a good college. Not that you would know that.” I snapped.

            “I don’t know why you’re getting mad at _me_ right now. I’m pointing out things that help your cause, not hurt it!” Jean defended.

            “He’s right, Eren. Plus, from what I know Levi was quite involved in extracurriculars until this year. It’s only in his senior that he dropped out of everything- soccer, student government, the debate team, and the list goes on. The only activity he does through the school now is tutoring, which is something he only started doing this year.” Armin said.

            “Yeah know, you’re really not helping the whole ‘you’re not a stalker case’ right now.” Jean pointed out.

            “Shut up.”

            “I don’t know.” I said. “Maybe he is interested in guys. I guess I’ll just have to try to find out in tutoring.”

            “Ugh, I still can’t believe you did that.” Armin groaned.

            “Oh yeah, please don’t tell Mikasa about this. Unless you want me to die.” I turned and looked him dead in the eye. “Do you want me to die, Armin?”

            “Well no, but I also don’t want you to fail French.” He said.

            “I won’t, I’ll have tutoring!” I exclaimed. 

            It was at this moment Levi and I made eye contact from across the room. He glared at me and then I saw his eyes flicker over the rest of the table. He seemed confused and that’s when I realized that everyone at the table was still staring at him. He had an entire group of freshman just sitting there staring at him and it must have looked creepy as hell. I panicked.

            “Guys, guys, he definitely just caught us all staring at him at the same time.” I quickly turned my head and hid behind my hand.

            “What? No he didn’t. See, he’s not even looking at us.” Marco said, trying to calm me down.

            He was right. Currently he was saying something to the rest of is table. Then, all of the sudden, in something straight out of a horror movie everyone at his table turned their heads and looked at our table. Everyone froze. I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing. Some sort of strange staring contest was occurring and none of us knew what to do. A table of seniors versus table of freshman. We stared at each other for what were the longest thirty seconds of my life before the one Armin had said was Hange started laughing. She turned and said something to Levi who snapped something back at her. The rest of the group’s eyes lingered a little longer, but then everything went back to normal.

            “What the hell was that?” Armin said in a weak voice.

            “I have no idea. Upperclassman are weird.” Jean said.

            We all spent the rest of lunch being very careful not to make any eye contact with anyone at that table. This proved to be a slightly difficult task, as they were in the perfect spot where just by looking straight ahead we were looking at their table. So, basically we just spent the rest of lunch staring down at our food in an uncomfortable silence. Thankfully, lunch was almost over and this only lasted for a few minutes. Once the bell rang and we all got up and hurriedly made our way out of the lunch room.

            “Alright, let’s agree to not sit at that table tomorrow.” Marco said, the second we were all out of the lunch room.

            “Agreed.” Everyone said in unison.

            “Good luck next time you run into Levi.” Annie said to me.

         “I should be fine. The next time I’ll see him is tomorrow morning. He’ll probably have forgotten all about this by then.” I laughed nervously.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time I ran into Levi was later in the afternoon and he had definitely _not_ forgotten about what had happened at lunch.

It was the end of the day I was packing my backpack with all of the things I would need for later that night. When I finished I slung the bag over my shoulder and shut my locker. There standing on the other side was Levi. I jumped, slightly startled. I didn’t even hear him come up. How long had he been standing there for?

“Oh, hey there, Levi.” I was honestly surprised that my voice was working right now. “Did you need something?”

“Why were you and your shitty friends staring at me at lunch?” He demanded.

“I, uh-”

“And don’t you dare say you don’t know what I’m talking about. You don’t just forget thirty seconds of unbroken eye contact.”

“Uh . . .” I had no idea how I planned on explaining myself. It’s not like I could just say ‘well, my friends and I were trying to figure if you were gay or not, no biggy.’ That would get me punched in the face.

“You know what? Never mind. Turn around for me real quick.” He commanded.

“What?” I heard my voice crack. In any other situation that would have sounded sexual, but right now I was one hundred percent terrified.

“You heard me.”

I slowly turned around so that my back was facing him. I suddenly felt my backpack being lifted up and then dropped back down. I let out of a sharp cry as the weight of the books smacked against my back.

“What the hell was that for?” I complained, rubbing my poor back.

“I was just checking something. It seems like you do actually bring books home. Although, I’d be willing to bet money that none of those are for French.” He slowly raised an eyebrow.

I was confused. Of course I didn’t have my French stuff with me, we didn’t have any homework tonight. He knew that. But why else would- oh God. Oh God, the quiz earlier today. There’s no way he has them all graded already. Wait, no, _dammit_! He has a free period, he must have graded them then. This was now a very delicate situation. I had to very careful to make sure I didn’t say anything to let him know I got a D on purpose. Summoning all of the acting skills I could remember from the play I was in during the third grade, I took a deep breath and spoke.

“We don’t have anything due tomorrow?” I replied, trying my best to look confused.

He narrowed his eyes at me and I could tell he knew that even I wasn’t buying anything I was saying. To be fair, I was pretty sure that my acting skills from playing cow number two wasn’t going to get me very fair, but it was worth a shot.

“And you think that means you shouldn’t be bringing home your French notes?” He questioned.

Ok, now I just had no idea what he wanted from me. From the way he was phrasing the question it was obvious that the answer was no, but I had already established to him that I didn’t have my French stuff with me. There was no way I could answer this question without being in trouble. I really don’t know why I was surprised that the conversation was going this way. This was how every conversation between the two of us had gone so far. If this was any prediction to how future conversations between us would go, I had a lot of work ahead of me.

“I don’t know?” I finally managed to answer. It wasn’t a direct yes or no and I was hoping that it would cause the least amount of trouble.

“Of course you don’t. That’s why you got a D on your fucking quiz that you promised the teacher you would study for.” He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and shoved it in my face. Sure enough there was a bright red D circled at the top of the page.

“I did study!” I protested.

“Oh, it’s very clear what you did.” He glared at me and snatched the paper out of my hands. “You can’t keep this. I have to give this to the teacher your quiz along with the others. You’ll get it back officially in class tomorrow. I do expect you to bring it to our first tutoring session, though.” 

That was it. That was what this was all leading up to. Phase one of make Levi fall in love with me was complete! I was so happy I could cry! I had to keep my composure, though. Most kids who get put in tutoring aren’t too happy about it, so if I was over here looking like I was over the moon Levi would definitely get angry at me. Well, angrier than he already was.

“Man, I was really hoping that I wouldn’t need to be in tutoring.” I sighed.

“Listen, you and I both know that’s total bullshit. You’ve been determined to have tutoring since I first spoke to you. I don’t know why you’re doing this or whatever it is you’re planning. One thing I do know is that if you want to be in tutoring in so bad I’m going to make you fucking work. Now, open your locker and take out your French stuff.” He ordered.

I honestly don’t know why I even bothered trying lie to him anymore, he could always tell. I guess it was the better of the two options I had. I could either lie to Levi and always get caught, or tell him the truth and get punched in the face. Yeah, telling him the actual truth was pretty much out of the picture at this point. I just did as he said and grabbed my all of my French work.

“Good. I expect you to study what we went over in class for at least thirty minutes every day. What day works best for you to meet?” He asked.

“Wednesdays. I have an hour after school before football practice starts that day because of the teacher meetings.” I said.

“Alright. We’ll meet Wednesdays at 2:30 in the library.” He said and took a step forward and shoved his finger at my face. “You will be there or I will murder you, got that? And I still expect to be paid for wasting my precious time with you, even after what I said before.”

“Wednesdays, 2:30, still paying you- got it.” I managed to blurt out. I knew I was being threatened, but I still couldn’t help, but notice how close his face was to mine at the moment. The hallway had managed to clear out in the few minutes we had spent talking, so we were completely alone at the moment. Anything could happen, but of course nothing did.

He stepped back and glared at me one last time before walking away. I waited until he was completely out of sight before I grinned and did a silent cheer to myself. Things were finally going right for me. This was going to be the beginning of a beautiful journey, I could feel it.

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s up with you, Eren? You look way to happy to be running laps right now.” Jean panted out as we were on our second out of four laps around the field.

“You know the plan I’ve been working on lately?” I asked.

“Something happened with your creepy tutoring plan with Le-” He started, before I immediately stopped him.

“If you say his name, I swear to God, I will cut your throat. I don’t care about the witnesses. They’ll thank me for doing such a justice for this world.” I hissed.

“Alright, geez, calm the fuck down. I assume there are people on the team who know him then?” He asked.

“Yep.” I said, eyeing Erwin at the front of the pack. He probably couldn’t hear Jean and me from where we were at, but who’s to say that the kid right in front of us wasn’t his cousin’s best friend, or some shit like that. Hell, I wasn’t Armin, I didn’t know weird facts about everyone.

“So, the reason you look like you’ve won a gold medal, even though we’re running in 90 degree heat, is because of _him_?” He asked more discreetly this time. 

“Yep. Phase one of the plan has be completed. Tutoring starts on Wednesday.” I said, trying my best to hold back the grin I could feel creeping up.

“Wow. I’m honestly a little bit impressed right now. I did not think that you’d get this far.” He said, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Thanks.” I said.

“But you know, there’s still the whole issue of no one knowing if he’s even into guys or not.” He pointed out.

“Trust me, I’m aware. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. For, now I just need to focus on getting him to not hate me and actually becoming his friend. Even if he turns out to be straight, he still seems like he’d be cool to have as a friend.” I said.

“But, him being gay is still the primary hope here?” He reaffirmed.

“Oh, absolutely.” I said.

“Alright. I just have one last question.” He said as we rounded the curve of our last lap.

“Shoot.”

“Even if he does turn out to be gay, who says he’ll want to be gay with you?” He smirked.

“Fuck you.” I growled. God, if no one was around right now I’d punch him in the face. Not that people being around has ever stopped me before.

Jean’s comment couldn’t dampen my good mood, though. When we split into groups and started our drills I gave it one hundred and ten percent. Even when I ended up falling or getting tackled I still felt great. This was the best I had performed since I’d started and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. After practice had ended I drinking out of my water bottle and I was approached by the coach of the varsity team, Dot Pixis. 

“You’re Eren Jaeger, aren’t you?” He asked.

“Yes, coach.” I answered, slightly shocked. I remembered Reiner saying something about how coach Pixis had been watching me before, but I never thought that he’d actually come up to me. Just then I saw Reiner pass by us and give me a thumbs up.

“You were impressive back there on the field. If you keep that up I might just move you up to varsity.” He said smiling.

“Yes! I mean, I will, coach.” I grinned.

“Alright. I’ll have you playing were you are for the first couple of games, just to give you a feel for what it’s like. If you manage to keep impressing me, I’ll bump you up to varsity.” He said.

“Thank you so much, coach! I promise I won’t let you down.” I said. He nodded at me and walked away.

I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. Today was going about as perfect as it could possibly get. I was actually starting to get slightly concerned. Nothing this good happens to me without something going wrong. I would worry about that later, though. Right now I was going to get changed and go home. I had French to study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hi there! Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. After I finished finals I was kind of burnt out and needed some time just laying around and doing nothing. Now that it's summer though, I should be able to update more frequently! Thanks for reading! :)


	4. Beauty and the Sleep

“Good morning, sunshine.” Mikasa was sitting at breakfast bar drinking and her tea in front of a plate of toast she had made for us. “It seems like you’re back to normal this morning.”

            “Ugh . . .” I groaned, attempting to use my arm as a shield against the devil light that poured in through the window and blindly reached for a piece of toast.

            I may have went a bit overboard last night. Once I had gotten back home I had almost immediately gone upstairs and started working on my homework. I quickly half-assed all of my work that wasn’t for French so I would be able to spend the rest of the night focusing on that. And that’s exactly what I did. With only taking breaks to eat and shower, I spent from around 5:00pm to 2:00am committing everything we had learned in French that day to memory. I had only went to bed when I had gotten too bad of a headache and couldn’t focus anymore. At the time I didn’t regret what I was doing. If I wanted things to run smoothly, or at least as smoothly as they could get, I needed to be a step ahead of Levi. This, for some reason, meant learning all of the material as best as I could. However, looking back at this idea now while struggling to make the toast reach my mouth, I was starting to question my logic.

            “What was up with you yesterday, anyway? Not that I minded it. If you want to actually be coherent in morning, feel free to do so.” She said, as she reached over and wiped toast crumbs off my face and tried to flatten my bedhead.

            “Ih jush fel lik gegging uh erly.” I muttered with a mouth full of toast, which earned me a whack in the head from Mikasa.

            “No talking with your mouthful.” She scolded. “What did you say?”

            “I said, that I just felt like getting up early. There was no special reason and trust me, it is never going to happen again.” I yawned.

            “That’s a shame, it was actually kind of nice not having to threaten poor cold water on you.” She said thoughtfully as picked the plate and moved into the dishwasher. “Come on, it’s time to go now.”

            I was still partially in zombie mode when we picked up Armin. Even though this was nothing unusual and he had seen this thousands of times before, he still seemed like he was suspicious of me. I was pretty sure that at this point he just assumed that everything I did was motivated by my plan. Which wasn’t true, just for the record. I mean, sure, it was the reason that I was in this half-comatose state, but not everything I did revolved around trying to get Levi to like me. Like, when I took a piss this morning. I wasn’t standing there all diabolical thinking ‘yes, this is the key to completing my plan. I can’t pine after Levi on a full bladder.’ I’m not that crazy. Armin apparently didn’t agree, because the first thing he did when I got to my locker was question me. Again.

            “What were you doing last night?”

            “Let me think. First, I spent a few hours writing Levi Jaeger in hearts in my diary. Then, I finished cutting out the final pictures of Levi for the shrine I’m dedicating to him in my closet. Once I have a lock of his hair for the doll I’m making, my masterpiece shall be complete.” I said dead serious and slowly turned to look him directly in the eye.

            “Eren, I’m being serious.” He rolled his eyes.

            “So am I. Once I the doll is complete I can perform the ritual.” I creepily grinned at him.

            “Eren . . .” He said sternly and crossed his arms. What a fun sucker.

            “Alright, _Dad_. If you must know, I was sleeping. It’s pretty weird, I know, but I hope you’ll expect me for who I am.” I rolled my eyes. “You do know that not everything I do revolves around that plan, right?”

            “I know, but I’m just worried about you, Eren. From now on, every final grade you get will show up on the transcripts that colleges read. I don’t want you have a shitty GPA just because of this stupid plan you have.” He said.

            “Don’t insult the plan, Armin!” I let out a mock gasp and clutched my chest. “Besides, I’m not going to fail French. Trust me.”

            “You know, you’ve been saying that a lot lately, but not really giving my any reason to believe you.” He pointed out.

            “Isn’t the years of friendship enough reason?” I smiled sweetly and batted my eyes.

            “If anything, that should probably make me believe you less.” He said flatly.

            All jokes aside, he was right. Ever since I had started this plan I had been sneaking around and lying to a lot of the people I cared the most about. Well, I tried lying to Armin, but he always ended up finding out anyway. I was starting to feel bad about not telling Mikasa, though. Dad was always working at the hospital, so ever since Mom died it’s been mostly her taking care of me. I hated keeping secrets from her. However, this was one thing I really didn’t want to share with her. She was just as on me about my grades as Armin was, plus she had already made it clear that she wasn’t overly fond of Levi. Telling her straight up about my plan probably wasn’t a good idea. I would have to wait until the time was right to tell her. Or when I get caught. Whichever comes first.

            Luckily, I didn’t have to spend too much more time pondering about what a terrible brother I was being, as the warning bell rang. I said bye to Armin who strangely didn’t say anything about trying to get more information out of me later, but I was still expecting it anyway. I made my way to French. It was only when I sat down that the fact that I had only gotten four hours of sleep started to hit me again. This wasn’t good. If I ended up falling asleep in class, not only would the teacher get mad at me, but so would Levi. I should be fine though, all I had to do was pay attention and focus on the teacher. That way I’d stay awake and Levi would think I was being studious.

            “Good morning class!” The teacher said cheerfully as she walked over and closed the blinds. What was she doing? “Today I have a special treat for you all. As most of you did so well on your first quiz of the year we’ll be spending class watching the French version of Beauty and the Beast. Levi could please turn off the lights and start handing back the quizzes?”

I was fucked. And I heard her say _most_. I knew that I was most likely the only student who didn’t get at least a B on this quiz. It didn’t matter, though. What mattered is I was about to be sitting in a dark room where the air felt like blankets for the next class period. I couldn’t fall asleep. I wouldn’t fall asleep. The opening credits began playing and I yawned. This was going to be a struggle.

A few minutes later I was resting my eyes when something slammed down onto my desk, making me jump. I looked and saw my quiz, which was slightly wrinkled from having been folded in Levi’s pocket. Nothing had changed from yesterday, I still had a D and when I looked up at Levi he was still glaring at me.

“Pay attention.” He hissed at me, before moving on.

            I was trying my hardest to stay awake, I really was. I tried dubbing over the French with my own story line in my head, but quickly realized I was not creative to keep that up. I tried singing a long at one point, but the only words I managed to pick up were ‘c'est la fête’ and could only mutter those words to myself so many times before I began to feel crazy. Once “Beauty and the Beast” started playing I had given up. The song was practically inviting me to sleep. Right before I closed my eyes, I glanced over in Levi’s direction. To my surprise, he was staring right at me.

Normally my glances at Levi were never returned. So to see him, not only looking at me, but looking first was really weird. He wasn’t really even glaring at me either, just staring me down. He slowly shook his head. He was telling me not to sleep. Had he been looking at me this entire time to make sure I wasn’t sleeping?

I sent back pleading eyes. I wanted to stay awake, especially if Levi was telling me too, but I was losing this battle. He rolled his eyes and leaned over to whisper something to the teacher, who nodded. Levi then got up and came over to where I was sitting.

“Get up, brat. You’re coming with me.” He whispered and left the room. I eagerly followed. The simple act of getting up and walking out of the room already causing me to feel more alert. Once the door shut behind us Levi crossed his arms and turned to face me. “Is there any special reason why you look like you’re about to slip into a fucking coma.”

“I was up late studying.” I smiled sheepishly. He couldn’t get mad at me about that, could he?

“How late?” He questioned.

“Um, about 2.” I admitted.

“What the hell? You’re a freshman, how did you have that much work?” He seemed surprised for a second, then something seemed to click. “How much of that time did you spend for French?”

“Most of it.” I could see this not going down a good path.

“I told you to study for half an hour!” He let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re not going to learn anything if you’re up until the ass-crack of dawn studying. You were about to pass out in there, imagine if there was actually a lesson going on today. You would have missed about half of it just willing yourself to stay awake!”

            “I would have stayed awake! It’s just right now it’s so dark and warm in there and-” I was interrupted by a huge yawn coming out of my mouth. Oops. Levi rolled his eyes and sighed.

            “Just go get a drink of water.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Hurry up, though. I told the teacher that I wanted to talk to you about tutoring, so we should be heading back soon.”

            “You lied to the teacher for me?” I grinned. This was a good sign.

            “Don’t look so pleased with yourself. The teacher wouldn’t had said anything even if she had caught you. She’s a good teacher, but she’s way too nice. I needed to make sure you understand that, as your tutor, I will not tolerate this kind of shitty behavior.” He said sternly, but then his eyes softened a bit. “But, I do know what it feels like to stay up so late over school work. Just try not to do it anymore unless it’s actually necessary. You’re only a freshman, relax a little.”

            I choked on the water I was drinking. This was the most Levi had said to me so far and it was something kind of nice. I wasn’t being yelled at! I couldn’t help, but smile. Things were starting to look up a bit.

            “Would you quit making that face, you look like a fucking moron. And wipe that water off your face, it looks like drool.” He grimaced. “Come on, let’s go back to class.”

            The rest of class went almost flawlessly. I say almost due to the fact that I did start to get a headache towards the end of class, but I was attributing that to my lack of sleep combined with how annoying Mrs. Potts French voice was. Other than that everything went smoothly. Levi had stopped staring at me, but I didn’t care. The fact that he had seemed worried about me staying up so late was so sweet. I was sitting there grinning like a fool. Maybe this plan wouldn’t be as difficult as I had previously thought.

 

* * *

 

            Naturally the first thing I did once I got to lunch that day was tell everyone about my encounter during French like a giddy school girl. I was way beyond the point of trying to keep them out of my business. They would always find out anyway due to me accidently giving away something or another Thomas coming up and saying something stupid. Plus, it always helped to have a little group of people who I could talk to and supported my plan. Well, kind of supported. Armin’s been panicking the entire time and Jean seems like he’s just watching to see me make an idiot of myself. Marco and Annie seemed like they were genuinely interested, though, so that’s nice.

            “ . . . Then he told me to wipe the water off my face because it looked like drool and then we both went back into the classroom.” I smiled as I finished up telling them the story. Sure, the last part wasn’t necessarily the most romantic thing, but I didn’t care.

            “Wow that’s great! It sounds like things are starting to go a lot better for you. Jean told me that you officially start tutoring on Wednesday.” Marco said.

            “That’s right. I’m just glad that I’m going into it tomorrow on a good note. It’ll help make this whole thing a lot more smoothly if he’s not constantly annoyed with me.” I said.  

            “I’m just glad he didn’t push the staring thing any further.” Armin shuttered. Everyone nodded in agreement. We were safely seated on the other side of the cafeteria and couldn’t see their table. I still had the unsettling feeling that one of them was just going to pop up out of nowhere, like a shark.

            “Do you have any idea how you plan on figuring out if he likes guys yet?” Annie asked.

            “I was thinking that I was just going to play it by ear. Maybe slip some things about dating or something into the conversation. I’m not entirely sure yet.” I pondered.

            “Shouldn’t you have some sort of gaydar or something?” Jean snorted.

            “I dunno, wouldn’t you have one, too, then?” I shot back.

            “Shut up.”

            “I’m still not sure about this, Eren.” Armin said. “I still feel like something’s going to go wrong. Have you told Mikasa _anything_ about this thing yet?”

            “Just relax, Armin. I have this entire situation under control. And no, I haven’t told her yet.” I muttered that last part. Damn, it’s like he knew I was starting to feel guilty about that.

            “You mean Mikasa doesn’t know yet? Ah man, when she finds out she is going to kill you.” Jean laughed.

            “Wait, who’s Mikasa?” Marco asked.

            “She’s my sister, she’s a junior here.” I clarified.

            “You mean you’ve been coming to lunch these past couple of days and telling people you just met about this plan of yours, but you haven’t told your own sister?” Annie blinked at me. Alright then, Annie.

            “Well when you put it that way, yeah it sounds bad. But, she would never understand. She already doesn’t like Levi and she would just try to make me stop this entire plan.” I said.

            “That’s because this entire thing is ridiculous.” Armin muttered.

            “You take that back, Armin. This is in the name of love!” I exclaimed.

            “You’ve barely known him for a week, Eren, you don’t love him!” Armin snapped. “Mikasa seems like the only one with any common sense around here. I might just tell her myself.”

            “Armin, I swear to God, if you do I will not hesitate to tell her about _that thing_ ” I threatened.

            “Go ahead! She’ll be too preoccupied with you to give any shits about that.” He said with a poker face. Two could play at this game Armin Arlert.  

            “Oh that could very well happen, but are you willing to take that risk?” I questioned darkly, trying to call his bluff.

            “Wait, you don’t mean that thing from seventh grade, do you?” Jean chimed in.

            “The very same.” I nodded.

            “I’m lost again. What is this _thing_?” Marco asked again.

            “Do not tell them!” Armin pleaded.

            “Oh, what was that? I thought you said you didn’t care if people knew about it?” I smirked.

            “I didn’t care if _Mikasa_ knew because she’d be too busy yelling at you to care about that. I don’t want you to tell _them_ because I don’t want them judging me from something I did in the seventh grade!” He said.

            “Tell us.” Annie said.

            “In the seventh grade we were sleeping over at Eren’s house and we had Armin steal a pair of Mikasa’s underwear on a dare.” Jean stated.

            “Jean I’ll kill you!” Armin buried his hands into his face. We all laughed, expect for Armin who was now mortified. It felt nice to laugh at the expense of someone else for a change.

            “Ah come on now, Armin. At least this was something you did in junior high. Jaeger’s about to make a total asshole out of himself his freshman year of high school. Something that will probably stick with him throughout all four years.” Jean sneered.

            “First of all, fuck you. Second of all, this plan is _going to work_. You guys just got to trust me on this!” I said. I take back about what I thought earlier about these guys being my support group. They all sucked.

            “Seriously, Eren, the more you say that, the less it means anything to me.” Armin pointed out.

            “I do kind of have to agree with Jean on this one. There’s a chance what you’re doing can work, but there’s also a lot of ways it can go horribly wrong as well.” Marco added sheepishly.

            Marco, why? Don’t let that stupid horse-face influence you! You’re too good for that! I sent pleading eyes to Annie. She had been quiet most of the time, but when she had talked it had seemed like she believed in the plan. She sighed before beginning to speak.

            “There’s a way any plan can go wrong, but Eren has put an extraordinary amount of work into his and so far it seems like it’s been paying off. As long as he keeps things up and plans in advance for things that could go wrong, I don’t see why his plan couldn’t work.” She said.           

            “See, Annie believes in me!” I cried.

            “Why’d you have to encourage him?” Armin asked, sounding distressed.

            “He’s putting a lot of time and effort into this. It only makes sense that it pays off in some way.” She explained.

            “Thank you!” I exclaimed. Finally someone acknowledged that I was actually working hard on this plan. Sure, the entire thing started out as kind of a fluke, but it’s evolved into much more than that now. I stayed up until two in the morning for this plan! I would not sacrifice my precious sleep for something I wasn’t completely serious about.

            “I still think the entire thing’s kind of creepy.” Jean added.

            “Yeah, well no one fucking asked you.”

 

* * *

 

           

            “So, how was your guy’s day?” Mikasa asked as she drove Armin and I home after all of our practices were over.

            “Not bad, pretty boring.” I said. “Coach Pixis didn’t say anything else to me today, but he nodded at me once. I think that’s good.”

            “That’s great! They’d be crazy not to move you up to varsity.” She grinned. “Armin what about you?”

            “Uh-” He started and then met my angry gaze in the review mirror. “Fine. It was fine.”

            “Hm. Well that’s good.” She pursed her lips together. She definitely knew something was up. It wasn’t ideal, but at least she wasn’t pressing it.

            Once we got home I tossed my backpack on a chair and headed to the bathroom. I knew that using the ones at school would probably be more convenient, but the toilets in the men’s locker room weren’t exactly what most people would call usable. When I finished I walked out to find Mikasa going through my bag and holding a wrinkled piece of paper. Shit.

            “What are you doing?” I quickly ran up and tried to take the paper out of her hands, but she darted out of the way.

            “What is this?” She demanded and held out the paper to face me. Sure enough, there was the bright red D at the top of the paper.

            “Why were you going through my stuff?” I asked angrily.

            “I knew something was up from how Armin was acting in the car ride home. Armin doesn’t do bad things, so I figured you must’ve done something stupid. Now, what is this?” She shook the paper for emphasis.

            “It was, uh, a quiz we took in French on Monday.” I confessed.

            “You told me over the weekend that you didn’t have anything important on Monday. This seems pretty important, Eren.” She raised her eyebrows and placed a hand on her hip.

            “I don’t know. I just forgot, I guess.” I mumbled.

            “Right, ok. Even if that is true, most of the questions you got wrong seem fairly obvious. ‘Which of these means green?’ You picked bleu. I never even took French and I know that’s not right!” She yelled. “Wait, did you say this was on Monday? That was the day you got up early for no reason.” I nodded. “God, I knew something was up! Why?”

            I became mute as she stared me down, waiting for a reply. From the way I figured, there were two ways this whole thing could go at this point. The first way would happen if I let my guilty conscious get the best of me and tell her the whole truth. This would most likely involve her grounding me, murdering Levi (who had no idea about this entire thing), and yelling at Armin and Jean for not telling her about this sooner. Essentially, the plan would be shut down. The second way would involve me continuing to stretch the truth to Mikasa. Sure, I would feel bad about it, but no one would get hurt and the plan would continue on as normal. She would eventually find out that I wasn’t telling her the entire truth later on, but for now that didn’t matter.

            “I forgot about it until Sunday night after I had already gone to bed. The reason I got up so early was so I could try to study a bit before school started. But, I was tired and kind of stressed myself out so I ended up not doing too well.” I said, trying my best to look pitiful.

            “Eren, you should have written down somewhere that you had a quiz.” She gently scolded. “But, at least this is only the first one. There will be plenty more for you to boost up your grade.”

            “I know. The teacher wants to make sure that I don’t fall behind, though, so she’s recommending that I get tutoring once a week.” I added.

            “That’s a good idea. You need to make sure you keep up your grades if you want to keep playing football.” She nodded. “Who’ll be tutoring you and when is it happening?”

            “Uh, Levi and it’ll be on Wednesdays before practice starts.” I said.  

            “Ugh, that bastard.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “As much as I think he’s a total jerk, he is the one of the smartest kids in the senior class. He’ll be able to help you out a ton. But, if he’s ever a jerk to you tell me. I’ll kick him in the throat.”

            “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” I laughed nervously, knowing that’s something she would probably actually do. She laughed and ruffled my hair.

            “Maybe. But, for now it’s time you hit those books. And make sure you don’t forget anything this time.” She said and then went upstairs to start working on her own homework.

            I let out a sigh of relief. Well, she knew some of what was happening now. I no longer felt like a giant pile of shit for a brother, but still kind of felt like shit for not telling her the entire truth. It was really the only way for me to fulfill my selfish desire to keep this plan going. She would find out one day, but today was not that day. Although now I was beginning to fear what would happen if the plan worked and I one day brought Levi home as my boyfriend. I sighed and opened my book bag to take my things out. One step at a time.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 4! It took a bit longer that I wanted to get write this one, so sorry about that. Thanks for reading! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so this is my first time publishing a fanfic. My tumblr is http://starsguideyouhome.tumblr.com/. I'll be sure to post stuff about when I'm updating on there. Fun fact before I go: my junior year I actually did have the star quarterback in my physics class and was completely unaware of it until my friend pointed it out to me. Go me.


End file.
